Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group Charter

The mission of the Emotion Markup Language
Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to
propose a specification draft for an Emotion Markup Language, to document it
in a way accessible to non-experts, and to illustrate its use in conjunction
with a number of existing markups.

Scope

In the general scope of exploring the feasibility of a standard in Emotion
markup, the proposed Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group is a natural
follow-up of the first Emotion Incubator Group, whose Final Report
was published on 10 July 2007.

During the first year, the group cleared and delimited the conceptual
ground along three main axes:

These promising concrete outcomes of the first year suggest that it is now
possible to move to the next steps:

prioritise the requirements in view of applicability and
transparency;

formulate a specification draft for an Emotion Markup Language;

illustrate how to combine the Emotion Markup Language with existing
markup languages.

It will also be an explicit aim of the group to get feedback from other
W3C groups, including the MultiModal Interaction and Voice Browser groups.

Deliverables

The group will produce the following deliverable documents:

a simplified Requirements document with priorities, after 3 months;

an "early Incubator draft" version of an EmotionML specification, after
6 months;

a "final Incubator draft" version of an EmotionML specification, after
12 months.

The documents due in months 3 and 6 are intended to stimulate discussion
with other groups.

Dependencies

W3C Groups

Multimodal Interaction Group

The Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group will invite and seek
comments from this group.

Voice Browser Group

The Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group will invite and seek
comments from this group.

External Groups

Invited experts

Due to the emerging nature of the field of emotion-oriented
technology, several experts from institutions which are not W3C members
will be invited to make sure that sufficiently broad expertise is
available in the group.

Participation

In an effort to minimize costs, face to face meetings will be co-located
with other meetings that a significant number of participants are attending.
Regular meetings will be held monthly using the W3C's Zakim telephone/IRC
facility. The mailing lists will provide an important part of the
communication both internally and externally.

Group participants are expected to be present at the monthly phone
meetings, and to deliver contributions they have agreed to make in a timely
manner. It is understood that participation in face-to-face meetings depends
on available funding.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list
public-xg-emotion@w3.org (archive) .
The group's Member-only list is member-xg-emotion@w3.org (archive)

Decision Policy

As explained in the Process Document (section 3.3), this group will seek to make decisions when
there is consensus. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent,
after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a
decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.

When deciding a substantive technical issue, the Chair may put a
question before the group. The Chair must only do so during a group meeting, and at least two-thirds of participants
in Good Standing must be in attendance. When the Chair
conducts a formal vote to reach a decision on a substantive
technical issue, eligible voters may vote on a proposal one of three
ways: for a proposal, against a proposal, or abstain. For the proposal to
pass there must be more votes for the proposal than against. In case of a
tie, the Chair will decide the outcome of the proposal.

This charter is written in accordance with Section 3.4, Votes of the W3C Process Document and
includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document
requires.

Patent Policy

This Incubator Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the
topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Incubator Group participants of
their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in
Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Incubator
Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Incubator Group
participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups,
the patent disclosure obligations do apply.

Incubator Groups have as a goal to produce work that can be implemented on
a Royalty Free basis, as defined in the W3C Patent
Policy.

About this Charter

This charter for the Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group has been
created according to the Incubator
Group Procedures documentation. In the event of a conflict between this
document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C
Process shall take precedence.